1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an outdoor, artificial Christmas tree populated with Christmas lights on it's frame to simulate a lighted tree at night.
2. Discription of Related Art
The use of the outdoor, artificial Christmas tree has become very popular, but the prior art assembly time is extremely time consuming and does not fit the needs of the consumer especially during the busy Christmas season; and often the storage boxes are very cumbersome. The prior art has many parts to assemble and is (in some cases) made of metals that are heavy and can cause electric shock in the event of an electrical short.
The outdoor, artificial Christmas trees most often are assembled by draping or clipping the lights onto the frame--then, to disassemble the trees the lights need to be removed, which causes entanglement, possible breakage of bulbs, and shortening the life span of each strand of lights, due to so much handling. This all makes for a frustrated time consuming task. For example, U.S. Pat No. 5,488,549 to Mier discloses a light-supporting apparatus with many parts to assemble and disassemble, whose lights are wrapped around the supporting apparatus from top to bottom making the tree a time consuming effort when assembling and disassembling.
The prior outdoor, artificial Christmas trees often resemble trees but only if you are close enough to visually see the material of the frame. At night the trees are (in some cases) a blur, or indistinguishable. The lights are strung in a fashion that is not uniform and at each bulb there is no support to keep within the shape of the tree and (in some cases) the wires are used to support the frame which can cause stress on the wires lights and be a hazard.
The outdoor, artificial Christmas trees most often have many moving parts and/or have many parts that are inserted into each other which can cause wear, become loose, or break from use. Small parts that need to be taken apart and stored can be misplaced. All this can shorten the lifetime use of the trees. For example U.S. Pat No. 3,704,366 to Korb discloses an artificial Christmas tree decoration comprising a skeleton structure of tubular members that have many parts which are inserted into each other and there attached by cotter pins or screws, which may be misplaced or broken.